The intrepid little traveller
– Switzerland
(1)
This story takes place about
1969, in Europe, St. Moritz
Switzerland.
The intrepid little traveller was living in Heidelberg
in Germany. She
had made some nice friends, one of whom had a Volkswagen Beatle.
Most of the intrepid little traveller’s friends were from the US
or Australia –
travellers as well. So some of them decided to take a little trip. They decided
to go to Mt Moritz
in Switzerland
to go skiing. So off they all hopped, in the Beatle to Switzerland.
The trip there was uneventful.
The story I want to tell today is about bobsledding and cameras. The intrepid
little traveller always had a camera with her and to this day has hundreds of
photos she’s got no idea where they were taken.
Wandering around St
Moritz, the intrepid little traveller discovered
something very interesting, something she’d never seen before and found
fascinating. On an ice track, our intrepid little traveller found men racing
on these funny little sleds. Now having been born in Canada,
the intrepid little traveller knew a fair bit about winter sports, but had
never seen this type of activity before. She found out later, that these men
were doing what is called “bobsledding”.
Being fascinated, and being an
avid photographer, our intrepid little traveller took her Pentax and started
taking photos. In 1969, people didn’t worry so much about possible dangers,
protecting the public from their own stupidity, so there were no fences or
barriers – just snow hills. So our intrepid little traveller climbed up on the
snow banks, leaned over the bobsled run and took photos.
Her friends were a bit concerned
– don’t go so close, Intrepid; be careful, Intrepid. But of course, the
intrepid little traveller paid no attention and kept climbing up on those
little snow banks, leaning over as far as she could without falling onto the
track and having a great time taking photos of this most exciting new sport she
had discovered.
Time passed and the intrepid
little traveller’s friends decided it was time to go and I do think everyone
was getting a bit cold by then, so off
went the intrepid little traveller and her friends.
Some time later, our intrepid
little traveller thought to herself – “this film seems to be taking an awful
lot of pictures”. Of course with a film
camera, there are only a certain number of photos you can take on one roll of
film. And, you can’t just open it up to check the film is in properly. After
taking more photos of St. Moritz,
our intrepid little traveller decided that something was definitely wrong.
Carefully opening up the back of the camera, what did our intrepid little
traveller discover – that she had not put the film in properly and it had not
been turning on the spindle.
So our intrepid little traveller has
no pictures of her one and only bobsled experience.
Madeleine
Saturday, 18 February 2006
